LIBERTY BEAT LOBO'S COMETS

Interspersed among the popular No. 11 (Teresa Weatherspoon) and No. 25 (Becky Hammon) New York Liberty jerseys that dotted the Madison Square Garden crowd Sunday were a few No. 50s.

Rebecca Lobo still wears No. 50, in Houston Comets red. She still wears the black brace on her twice-injured left knee. She still led the players off the bench to greet the Comets starters coming off the floor during each timeout.

And she still sat on the bench, much as she had done her last two seasons with the Liberty after two anterior cruciate ligament tears knocked her out of the lineup.

Lobo, who returned to the Garden for the first time as a Comet for a May exhibition game, played only two minutes Sunday. She entered the game with 11:25 left in the second half to a smattering of applause and a few boos. She missed a jump shot. Coach Van Chancellor took her out. And that was it.

The Comets ended up losing to the Liberty, 62-56, in front of an announced crowd of 17,368.

Lobo, traded by the Liberty April 3 for a second-round draft pick, is averaging only 5.7 minutes -- not much more than last season's 5.3 minutes -- 1.2 points and 1.1 rebounds. Still, she remains upbeat.

"It's going really well," Lobo said. "Obviously, I'd love to be playing a lot. But other than that, I love playing for the team. I'm really enjoying it.

"Houston's like Connecticut -- no matter what you do, they're going to be cheering for you."

Chancellor is the head cheerleader. He loves Lobo.

"Rebecca Lobo's problem is that Michelle Snow's playing great. When we acquired Lobo, we thought we'd have a little more playing time for her.

"She has a great work ethic, she has one of the greatest attitudes and she is tremendous credit to our basketball team. She comes in and leads our second unit in practice every day."

The last few years in New York were rough on Lobo and she thought she might regain some confidence in Houston. Liberty coach Richie Adubato, who had coached her for one minute in a regular season game before she was injured, never deemed her ready to crack his lineup. Adubato also grew tired of talking about Lobo and her lack of playing time. A couple of days ago, when asked about Lobo's return to the Garden, he told the Newark Star-Ledger, "I guess you could say it would be Rebecca's homecoming. But I just watched three tapes of Houston, and I haven't seen her once."

If he didn't watch closely Sunday, he would have missed her again. Lobo comes off the bench behind perennial All-Star Tina Thompson, who averages 36.5 minutes, and Snow (12.8 minutes). Lobo's best outing was a nine-point effort against Detroit July 6, when she played a season-high 14 minutes.

"I think the minutes I'm getting in Houston are more important minutes, in a way," Lobo said. "When I was getting minutes here last season, it was like the last 2-3 minutes of the game. The last game in Houston, I played at the end of the first half, when the game mattered, and I contributed. [In New York], I let myself get frustrated because I wasn't playing. Whereas here, I'm just ready for whatever comes and if it doesn't come, it doesn't come."